Identification
Identification is considered by some to be the heart of NetHack. Most items in the game start unidentified, and are described only by their appearance. There are many methods of identifying them. Mechanics of identification Nethack gives three 'levels' of identification: Auto-identification Also known as formal identification, auto-identification causes an item to be called by its proper name, overriding their appearance and anything you may have called the item. Identification with a prompt In some cases, you will be prompted to call an item that you have just used, for example if you were hit by a potion thrown by a monster in circumstances that will not auto-identify it. Potions used by monsters giving unusual effects will also do this, such as a cursed potion of gain level. You will also get this opportunity sometimes when dropping rings down sinks. Identification with no prompt In some cases, the effect of an action will unambiguously identify it to a fully spoiled player; however, NetHack declines to auto-identify it. This happens in most cases when engraving with wands, and when an item's price uniquely identifies it. In these cases, and any ambiguous cases that reduce the possibilities, you will have to use #name to call the item an appropriate name. Sometimes, a certain action will use up an item in one case, and retain it in another. In these cases, you should call the item by the name of the item that would disappear, then rename it afterwards if it is still available. A common situation for this is throwing gems to unicorns; the unicorn will "gratefully" accept valuable gems and "graciously" accept glass. #naming the gem to distinguish one or the other first means you will know when you next find one. If the unicorn only graciously accepts the gem, simply call it glass instead. Various cases of #dipping items into potions fall into this category too. Straightforward identification None of these methods are based on the item's behavior, all are universal, and all result in formal identification by the game engine (don't require naming). Initial knowledge Items that you start with are automatically identified for you. This is particularly useful for wizards, which will have 2 spellbooks, 3 scrolls, 2 rings and 1 wand identified from the beginning. In addition, depending on your role you may have some knowledge in weapons and armors. Also, if you start with an oil lamp, the potion of oil will be identified for you. Magical identification Scroll of identify When reading a scroll of identify, you will be allowed to ID one or more of your possessions depending on the scroll's beatitude. The odds are: *If your luck is positive, you will identify 2 items instead of one. Spell of identify Casting this divination spell has the same effect as reading a blessed scroll of identify, except that positive luck will not increase the number of identified items from 1 to 2. Sitting on a throne One of the possible throne effects is the same as that of reading a blessed scroll of identify. Touchstone A blessed touchstone will formally identify all valuable gems, worthless glass, and other gray stones rubbed on it. A gnome or archaeologist may also use an uncursed touchstone for formal identification. This is as good as the identify scroll or spell, except that it doesn't reveal the BUC status of the gem or stone. Selling in shops Selling or buying an item in a shop will cause the shopkeeper to tell you the appearance of the item. If the appearance is unique and not randomized, e.g. for many types of armor and weapons, he will identify the item class for you. This is probably only useful in zen conduct games (also: wand of probing, potion of object detection). Indirect identification These methods require some knowledge (acquired from spoilers or experience), often lack universality, and don't always result in formal identification of an item as they sometimes give ambiguous information. Price identification Although the price a shopkeeper charges is based on your charisma and slightly randomized, it is still helpful to some extent. (However, this method is useless selling gems, as shopkeepers charge the same amount for a piece of worthless glass as they would for a precious gem). The simplest and most common application of price identification is identification of the scroll of identify (the cheapest of the scrolls). Weight identification The weight of an unknown object is not nearly as useful as its price, but it can provide additional clues. This goes especially for cursed equipment you don't want to wear. In some cases such as levitation boots, it is unique within a price group. One practical way of weight testing is to pick up just enough rocks and gold not to be burdened, pick up the object, and count the rocks and gold you need to drop to un-burden you. Behavior identification Identification by using Rings, potions, scrolls, and especially armour can be ID-ed this way. Some items are identified instantly when you wear/quaff/put them on. Many potions do this, as well as some rings and armour (boots of speed, elven cloak etc.) Some require a little time before you notice (e.g. ring of slow digestion) Some are identified when some special thing occurs (rings of different resistances, amulet of reflection, amulet of magical breathing) You can also use enlightenment to identify intrinsic-providing items. Always remember to take the utmost care when use-identifying things. Check its beatitude using a pet or altar. Check potions using a unihorn (although some players just quaff and heal themselves, since dipping a unihorn into an unID'ed potion that turns out to be polymorph will polymorph that unihorn into a random tool). Don't read unidentified scrolls when confused or when wearing a precious piece of armour. Things that can be easily identified this way are: * Cloaks - All the magical cloaks except cloak of magic resistance and (for invisible characters) cloak of invisibility auto-ID when you wear them. In this way, a non-invisible character can identify all cloaks unambiguously via wearing. * Boots - Fumble boots and levitation boots are mostly generated cursed. Elven boots (for characters without stealth) and speed boots auto-ID on wearing. Jumping boots are trivial to identify. If nothing happens when you wear the uncursed pair and you can't jump, you have either kicking boots or water walking boots, or (if you have stealth) elven boots. You can sometimes discern between them if you are a spellcaster, as kicking boots hinder your spellcasting abilities. * Whistles - Blowing the whistle unambiguously identifies it. If you blow a magic whistle and you have a pet on the level, the game engine will also identify it. Identification by monster use Humanoid monsters will use certain items; this can be helpful in identification. They are sometimes created wearing an amulet of life saving which will auto-identify when it resurrects them. They will quaff beneficial potions (healing, extra healing, full healing, speed, invisibility, gain level, polymorph) and throw harmful potions (acid, blindness, confusion, sleeping, paralysis). Generally potions will auto-identify when quaffed or thrown by monsters, but the potion of confusion is an exception. This is because thrown booze has the same effect - however monsters do not throw booze. They will read scrolls of create monster, earth, fire, and teleportation. If a scroll read by a monster has no visible effect, it was most likely create monster, and the new monsters were out of your visual range. They will zap you with attack wands, and will zap themselves with wands of polymorph, speed monster, make invisible or teleportation. This can help distinguish the wands of cancellation, make invisible and teleportation, which cannot be told apart by engraving. Identifying Scrolls This section is intended to make it easy to identify scrolls by the message(s) received after reading them, and without risking your Excalibur. This section is an adjunct to the The NetHack Object Identification Spoiler and a summarization of the Scroll spoiler. It is best to have identified the B/U/C status of each scroll before beginning this process, and only identify blessed or uncursed scrolls. Also, don't be confused, blind or hallucinating. Be sure to identify the "scroll of identify" early by its price. That way you can have lots of stuff in your inventory. Otherwise, use the techniques below. Beware of the scroll of amnesia. There is no defense against the possibility of losing up to 25% of your discoveries. Early in the game, this may not be a serious problem as you will not have discovered very much, but think about whether you have the spellbooks handy for any spells you would mind losing. Later on, it is wise to use price identification to check whether unidentified scrolls could be amnesia. A scroll of amnesia costs ten times as much as a scroll of identify. There are precautions you should take to minimise the risk of other bad scroll effects. Do not stand next to a pet or peaceful monster in case the scroll you are testing is fire or earth. Also make sure that all your flammable items are kept safe from the scroll of fire (either put them in a bag or drop them two squares away from you). As a cursed scroll of enchant armor will curse the piece of armor that it disenchants, you may want to remove all your armor. If the scroll you are testing is not cursed, you can wear a helmet that you don't care about, to protect you from the boulder which the scroll of earth will drop on your head, and to ensure that destroy armor and enchant armor are auto-identified. A cursed scroll of enchant weapon does not curse your weapon, and it's a good idea to wield a weapon that you don't care about when testing cursed scrolls. Another approach is to read scrolls while confused, because this generally reduces the effect of bad scrolls (but only do this if you are sure it is not a scroll of genocide, since confused uncursed genocide is an instadeath). For example, scroll of punishment won't attach the ball and chain if you are confused. Take a look at the Scroll spoiler for exactly what happens (especially, the messages) when you read while confused. Optionally, you could try to ensure that food, a potion, gold, and a trap are all present on the level, so that the scrolls of food detection and gold detection can be more readily identified. The potion and trap are only needed if you are testing cursed scrolls. Some scrolls always identify themselves when read, some identify themselves under the right conditions, and some never identify themselves. If your character is a beginner (roughly, below XP level 6 for wizards and 7 for everyone else), then several scrolls have a possibility of giving the message "You have a strange feeling for a moment, then it passes." If your character is not a beginner, then it will be possible to distinguish all scrolls by the messages and effects obtained by reading them. *These scrolls always auto-identify: **amnesia, blank paper, charging, earth, fire, genocide, identify, magic mapping, punishment, stinking cloud *These scrolls almost always auto-identify: **create monster (if the new monsters are seen), gold detection (if not cursed and gold on level), light (if not blind), teleportation (if blessed or you are teleported sufficiently far from your old position) *These scrolls auto-identify under the right circumstances: **destroy armor (if wearing armor), enchant armor (if wearing armor), enchant weapon (if not cursed and wielding a weapon), food detection (if food on level) *These scrolls never auto-identify: **confuse monster, remove curse, scare monster, taming Read the scroll and get the following result. Unless otherwise stated, it is assumed that the scroll is not cursed and that you are not a beginner, blind, confused, or hallucinating. When bad scrolls do good: Wand engrave identification In order to do the identification engrave something in the dust and then try to engrave something else with the wand on the same square. Nine wands can be unambigously identified. The rest will give ambiguous results. Unlike the scroll or spell, the number of charges will not be revealed, except that you know you've just spent one. A wand with zero charges will have no effect, possibly misleadingly, so do not use this method with wands in bones piles. Dropping a ring into the sink This technique is useful when you have multiple rings of the same type or when you are desperately looking for a ring of slow digestion. Death-drop identification Some monsters are more likely to possess certain items. E.g. nymphs are often generated with a potion of object detection, and elves with an elven cloak and elven boots. Artifact naming trick If you have an item, and there is an artifact that is the same item type as that item, you cannot #name the item (answer 'y' at the prompt) with the name of the artifact (unless it is a #name-created artifact such as Sting) -- your hand will slip. This can be used to identify certain items. Most notably, a Helm of Brilliance cannot be named "The Mitre of Holiness", and a luckstone cannot be named "The Heart of Ahriman". If you try naming an unidentified helm or gray stone accordingly, and your hand slips, you know what you have -- otherwise you know one thing you don't have. Cheat A very easy way to identify all your items : save the game, copy the save file, paste it, then reenter the game, and quit. When it ask you if you want your possessions identified, click y,.Note the items you have. Then rename the copy with the same name as the initial, and you'll have your game as if nothing happened. Same things for attributes. External links *The NetHack Object Identification Spoiler * Category:ID